Hollywood at the Y

   
  We have three men in our water aerobics class. The rest of the class is made up of ladies over say, 65. The men stand out because, well, they’re men in what is frankly a ladies’ class. It occurred to me today that they provide a slice of Tinseltown to our group. Not because they’re particularly glamorous (this is far from the case with two of them), but because each reminds me of someone from earlier films.

          The first one is a regular, and I’ll give him credit for hanging in there while the rest of us float around and discuss book clubs and where to eat. He’s fairly tall, so he stays toward the deep end and quietly treads, flutter kicks, and cross-country skies along with the ladies. He has a small mustache, dark hair (having hair at this age is noteworthy), and wears a Speedo, but not in an obnoxious way. 

He reminds me of Harvey Korman playing Rhett Butler.

         

     

 The second joins us only when his wife does. I imagine they present differently with clothes on, but in swimsuits she’s a little bit of a grey-haired Jane Fonda, while he bears an uncanny resemblance to Uncle Fester of the TV Adams Family, as played by Jackie Coogan. Like Guy #1, he also is unassuming, working out near his wife, and rarely interacting with anyone. 

          The third is the one who set me thinking about all this. I hadn’t realized how short he was until I followed him today to the locker room area. When we got to the weights portion of the class, he chimed in to the instructor's prompts, calling in a voice not unlike the Mayor of Munchkintown, “Hold in your core!” and as she said, “Two! Four! Six! Eight!”, he’d shout out “One! Three! Five! Seven!” One of those people who’s decided being loud equals being funny.

 

 He’s a ringer for James Cagney in Ragtime.